Aww, Legumes.

I love Indian food. K and I had some tikka masala sauce from a jar with Trader Joe’s frozen Naan and some garbanzo beans (which are 40 cents less at Wal-Mart, by the way), and I decided to venture into curry. I looked up the recipe for Rachel Ray’s “Chicken Curry in a Hurry” (Karen’s recommendation), as well as a spicy peanut chicken recipe she’d also recommended.

I had a lovely little note to myself with ingredients to find at the store, but it didn’t make it to the store with me…so I wandered up and down the aisles of WalMart and Hy-Vee looking for foreign objects like curry paste, chili paste, and toasted sesame seed oil. And the faulty memory of the list that actually called for unsalted, dry roasted peanuts. I did find fresh ginger (half the price at WalMart than HyVee…shocking), regular sesame seed oil, salted spanish peanuts (whoops!) and some small spice containers (turmeric, coriander, hot chili powder.) that I imagined would be sufficient for making a curry. I was disappointed to not find any Indian food (even convenience products) in the aisles. Thai curry existed in two forms (a red paste and a green paste), but that was all.

The recipe was probably better than I was…I added 4 times the amount of chicken broth required and made “yellow” rice (turmeric) a bit more yellow than necessary for a sort of Thai dish. Additionally, the recipe for chili paste I found was sorely disappointing…it clumped in the sauce I cooked, making hard chunks that resembled (at least in my mind’s eye) liver. My accident in buying Spanish peanuts resulted in me taking the skinish coating off by hand…not fun. It was a salty dish, and a lot of work (mincing stuff with my new knives was pretty easy, thank goodness!), with minimal leftovers. I might not make it again…perhaps if my grocery store peeps follow through with carrying some of the things I couldn’t find…

Anyway, if you know where in Iowa I can buy Indian fare (Trader Joe’s of course) to make at home, would you let me know? I’m really hopeful to make curry a regular meal.